Well, what function did Steven Seagal fill? People saw what he was doing in the movies, and most of them got the wrong idea about it. Of those, some were attracted to this wrong idea, and came to aikido dojos looking for the wrong thing. Of those, most left pretty quickly (often without starting), some stayed long enough to be a pain in the ass, and a few stayed long enough to get the crap out of their heads and become students worth having.

Question 1: am I wrong about any of that?

Question 2: if I'm right about that, how would a movie martial artist be a better avenue than any other for attracting a large quantity of poor-quality prospects?

Nope, you're not wrong about any of that. Getting people in the door is indeed my point. A few will stick and be good students. That's worth it, imo. One percent of someone is better than one percent of nobody.

And, if we are to have room for the folks who dont want the martial, destructive side of aikido, shouldn't we also have room for the folks who do? Seagal's aikido was pretty damn good, not all that far from mainstream, and he got a lot of folk to at least look at a dojo....

What if someone wrote a movie that portrayed aikido a bit differently now that folks have had a bit of an intro to it? Something like the first Karate Kid movie, which was pretty awesome.